Why “New Media” is no replacement for “Old Media.”

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The DC circuit court struck a stinging blow to any thoughts about so-called “Net Neutrality” when it overturned the FCC’s attempts to force Comcast the abide by its rules regarding internet access.  The three-judge panel ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to force Internet Service Providers (ISP) to give equal access to all its customers.  In a nutshell, this means that companies like Comcast, ATT, and Verizon, can filter search engine results and traffic, baning websites for no specific reasons.

So much for net neutrality.  Say I type something here that is critical of one of those companies, or any ISP for that matter.  With a few keystrokes, my site will disappear.  Gone.  Just like that.  For those that think the internet is this wonderful open global village thing that can spread the word and as a sort of modern-day check and balance system, think again.  In this day and age, when corporations have the same rights as people, look for the large ISPs to spend significant lobbying dollars to keep the laws tilted in their favor.  I would expect to also see quite a few campaign contributions to legislators that are friendly to large corporations.

There are several letter-writing campaigns, urging the FCC to change its classification of ISPs to a common carrier status, something that would put the ISPs squarely under the FCC’s control.   I look upon those with a jaundiced eye.  Perhaps the FCC can be convinced to change the rules, this time.  What will happen when a new FCC gets appointed?  Will those changes stay in effect?  The cynical side of me says no.

Independently run media outlets have traditionally acted as a backstop in our society.  There are fewer and fewer of those left these days.  I will readily acknowledge that the current crop of radio station owners, with some minor exceptions, have left the industry in shambles.  Their decision to place profit above all considerations, in spite of the license being granted in the public trust, has decimated newsrooms, reduced staffing, and relegated community involvement to a minor paperwork shuffle at license renewal time.  All of this and more have conspired to make radio dull and uninformative.   Bland canned formats created and programmed thousands of miles away have ruined local radio flavor.  No wonder why people spend money to download from Itunes.

Yet, radio listenership is still high.  Radio’s saving grace is it is nearly universal, everyone has a radio, and most households have four or five radios.  The technology is time-tested and it works well.  Almost every square mile of the US is covered by broadcast radio signals.  Some areas are sparse, but there are at least one or two stations that come in.  People are used to radio, there is no learning curve, no subscriber fees, and no censorship from a huge faceless mega-corporation.  Well, that last part is in theory, anyway.  It is almost too much of a coincidence that mega-corporations also own the majority of radio stations too.

Television as a medium is almost gone.  Very few people actually watch over-the-air TV, most people get their TV piped into their house via cable.  Once again, as those in the NY metropolitan area know, there is no guarantee that the local cable operator will carry a broadcast station, vis a vis the WABC-7 Cablevision dispute from last month.

Newspapers are struggling to stay afloat, even the once mighty New York Times has seen better days.

That leaves us with Radio to fill in the role of un-censored informer.  Can they?  Will they?  It would be a radical departure from the current course and only time will tell.

S.2881 – FCC Commissioners’ Technical Resource Enhancement Act

The House version of this bill is HR 4809.  It seems that in this day and age, as the country is becoming more and more technologically advanced, the communications regulation arm of the federal government is feeling a little left behind.  This is a fairly common thing these days, companies are run by accountants and lawyers while the engineers and technologists that actually do whatever technical thing the organization is supposed to be doing are “those funny guys in the basement” or corner or wherever.  The bill reads as such:

Section 4(f)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 154(f)(2)) is amended by inserting after the first sentence the following new sentence: ‘Each commissioner may also appoint an electrical engineer or computer scientist to provide the commissioner technical consultation when appropriate and to interface with the Office of Engineering and Technology, Commission Bureaus, and other technical staff of the Commission for additional technical input and resources, provided that such engineer or scientist holds an undergraduate or graduate degree from an institution of higher education in their respective field of expertise.’.

That would be a step in the right direction.  Hopefully said engineer has several years of experience also, field experience would be even better.  As a radio engineer, I learned that theory is great and most of the time everything goes together exactly as it is supposed to.  There are those occasions, however, where theory has to be thrown out and a prove-fail/prove-pass approach needs to be taken.

In any case, the bill appears to be on the fast track and hopefully, the FCC commissioners will choose and use their staff engineers wisely.

I-Buzz

Rumor has it that iBiquity is going to release a software upgrade for the AM IBOC system they peddle.  Allegedly it is going to improve the sound quality of the digital signal, allow the analog signal to increase its bandwidth to 10 kHz, and provide data such as song titles.  No word on whether they will be providing software upgrades to consumers for the many HD radioTM receivers out there.

I have been following a discussion on AM quality over the last few days.  It seems many engineering types at least, acknowledge that analog AM can sound good, if not more natural than FM.  The addition of IBOC hybrid mode on AM station has created more noise and further degraded the station’s main signal by reducing the bandwidth to less than 5 kHz.

Tonight I am listening to WWVA on 1170 kHz, and there is this horrific white noise/hash over top of the station.  Same thing on 1190 kHz, all courtesy of WHAM 1180’s IBOC transmission.  It is one thing to trash your own station, limiting the analog audio response to 5 kHz.  It is quite another thing to trash the adjacent frequencies with noise making them unlistenable.

Here is a brief clip (recorded at 8:00 pm EDT, March 24, 2010):

The second clip, WWVA has faded out (recorded at 9:10 pm EDT, March 24, 2010)

The audio in these videos is adequate but not the best, still, it is pretty clear that there is a whole bunch of white noise on top of WWVA’s signal and on 1190 where no station is coming in. The only conclusion that I can draw is that WHAM is operating with their IBOC turned on. This was recorded at a location that is 197 miles from WHAM and 364 miles from WWVA.  I have made several better recordings directly into the computer without the video frequency readout reference.

In 1990, the FCC mandated NRSC-2 (73.44) spectral mask on all AM stations, requiring them to put in brick wall filtering to limit the bandwidth to 10 kHz or less.  They also require all AM stations to do “equipment performance measurements” (73.1590) to verify that the stations are complying with FCC regulations.  This was done because of excessive sideband splatter by AM broadcasters creating interference to adjacent channel stations.  I agree in principle with the NRSC-2 standard, I think it serves a purpose.  Why then, are stations allowed to interfere with other stations with IBOC signals?  Even though Ibiquity has put up a spectral mask that complies with NRSC-2, it still creates interference.  Isn’t this a double standard?  A station in Pennsylvania gets fined $4,000.00 for operating past its sign-off time (because operating after sign-off might create harmful interference), yet, WHAM gets to generate noise all night and drowned out adjacent channel stations that are hundreds of miles away.

In the meantime, if the FCC inspector shows up at a station that has not made the required “equipment performance measurements” they will get a fine too.

Am I crazy, or is it hypocritical bull shit to fine one station for potentially harmful interference, but then the FCC to ignores its own rules and allows another type of interference?  Hint: I am not crazy.

I have recorded this in .wav format and I am sending it to the FCC with an interference complaint letter.  It is about time somebody made some noise about this noise.  Apparently, there are many engineers who feel the same way.  Will Ibiquity listen, or will they keep doing CPR on a corpse?